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The New Yorker: The hunt for 'El Chapo' Guzman

Posted:
05/01/2014 09:50:04 AM MDT

One afternoon last December, an assassin on board a K.L.M. flight from Mexico City arrived at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. This was not a business trip: the killer, who was thirty-three, liked to travel, and often documented his journeys around Europe on Instagram. He wore designer clothes and a heavy silver ring in the shape of a grimacing skull. His passport was an expensive fake, and he had used it successfully many times. But, moments after he presented his documents to Dutch customs, he was arrested. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had filed a Red Notice with Interpol-an international arrest warrant-and knew that he was coming. Only after the Dutch authorities had the man in custody did they learn his real identity: José Rodrigo Arechiga, the chief enforcer for the biggest drug-trafficking organization in history, Mexico's Sinaloa cartel.